WHY: Today Google Earth celebrates the election season with the launch of the 2006 Google Earth Election Guide.

Conceived by Google Earth engineers who found it difficult to find aggregated election information online about races country-wide, the 2006 Google Earth Election Guide serves as an easily accessible resource for users to find information about candidates, voter registration, and campaign financing for the November 7th elections.

"We’re excited to connect voters across the country to timely and locally relevant information about the upcoming elections and the candidates," said John Hanke, director of Google Earth and Maps. "We continue to believe that Google Earth can serve as the ultimate tool for organizing and sharing similar geo-based information."

The 2006 Google Earth Election Guide includes clickable place marks for all 435 Congressional districts. Each place mark includes:

The slate of candidates running for office in that district, with live feeds from Google Web, Image, and News Search for each candidate

Campaign finance information from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and Center for Responsive Politics (www.opensecrets.org) for the district’s candidates

A link to voter registration and voter information sites, localized to each state

The 2006 Google Earth Election Guide is available under the Layers tab of the Google Earth sidebar.

Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to make the world's geographic information easily accessible and useful. There have been over 100 million downloads of Google Earth since the product’s launch in June, 2005.

About Google Inc.Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google's targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

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